Clean Like You
by Beloved-the-Fool
Summary: A semi-guided tour through the mind of Cal Lightman.


**Disclaimer: Lie To Me, mine? Sadly, no.**

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_"Put your hand on your heart and tell me you think Wallowski's clean."_

_"What, you mean clean like you?"_

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Clean like you.

I've always thought of you as clean. Neat, tidy, pure as the driven snow, something to be kept in pristine condition. Not to be sullied by the likes of me.

_Clean like you._

When I said that to you in the heat of the moment, I knew it would hurt – not just you but both of us. I was right, too. I had my reasons.

Clean like you.

If I hurt you with that, it meant you cared. It also meant I could still protect you by keeping you at arm's length. Because when we get too close – as we sometimes have done over the years – you are in danger; and I don't take risks when it comes to you, as you well know. So arm's length is where I try to keep you, yeah? I just have to hope and trust to our long history that you will never move further away than that. Arm's length, that's the absolute outer limit of the space I'm willing to have between us, luv. At times, the space has been wider than that, and that – to me – is unacceptable. It hurts. It makes me feel awful and miserable and incomplete. I hate it.

Clean like you.

If I hurt myself with that, it meant I'm still in control. It also meant that I care enough about you to take that sort of pain in order to keep you with me at any cost. And if I'm honest, it also meant that what I only just recently confessed to Emily – that I do _really_ love you – is the absolute truth. Admitting it to Emily, that was the first time I'd actually said it out loud. It sounded strange in my ears, but it also sounded…right.

Clean like you.

You showed me that IA footage of Wallowski and Farr; and when I said Wallowski was pissed off at her partner, I knew you'd know _exactly_ how that felt. You are often pissed off at me. I needed you to identify with her on that level so that later on, when I asked-without-asking for you to lie for her _for me_, you would do it. I _knew_ you'd hate it and that you'd hesitate just that fraction of a moment but that, in the end, you'd come through for me. Cos that's what you do. It's what you always do. I needed you to help me protect Wallowski but not for the reasons you obviously assumed. You know what they say about assuming, don't you? Yeah, well, it's mostly me who's the arse, but there you go.

Clean like you.

I said IA wanted me to stay out of it, but I knew it was really you (mostly you, anyway) what wanted that. I knew _why_, as well. Knew it even without the micro-expression you flashed, the one you couldn't quite conceal fast enough. I knew, too, that there was more than one 'why' in your mind, and I opened with that IA guess so I could suss out which of your why's ranked highest. On the list was that you wanted to protect our company (noble) and that you wanted to protect me (even more noble). Those weren't #1, though.

I was a little surprised – and, I admit, more than just a bit turned on – that your #1 why was jealousy. Gillian Foster was jealous _over me._ And not in the usual way you and I have been jealous throughout our relationship. No, this was a whole new brand of it, a side of you that I suspected and hoped for but never glimpsed. Not til that moment, because you are always so bloody careful when you're with me. You _think_ you're careful, anyway.

Yep, you were jealous. I'd be lying if I said I didn't love that. That little bit of intel you let slip made me feel absolutely _high_. You're my favourite addiction, Gill. Always have been. More than gambling, even. Shocking, innit?

Jealous. You were jealous of Wallowski. That was adorable. Misguided but adorable. Misguided because what you didn't know…what you couldn't have known…is that there was zero going on with her and me. Would it surprise you to learn that she and I never, y'know, did the Ol' Horizontal? We went out, yeah – dinner and the like – and I did what I could to make it appear (to the casual observer) to be more than it was. If you hadn't been so close to the situation (guess I'm _your_ blind spot, in't I?) you'd have seen that. My ruse would never have held up to proper scrutiny. I mean, the one and only time I was in her bedroom involved numerous guns, several bad guys and a lot of shooting. Hardly turn-on material, eh? Well, okay, maybe a _bit_ of a turn-on, but that might've just been the adrenaline.

Clean like you.

When I threw 'partner loyalty' in your face, I knew how it would affect you. Though you hid behind the claim of irony, I knew you felt the same way and understood my motives for trying to protect Wallowski. Of course, you read far more into my motives than was there, and that was ok, too. It kept you away from me. –Ish. I wanted that, because I felt terrible for being disloyal to you even if it was for a good cause and came from a good place. By getting you to lie for her for me, I made you _dirty_ – like me, like all the rest of us. Clean Gillian. I dragged you through the muck, which was the very thing I fought so hard for so long to avoid.

I've been having a hard time living with myself, so I made myself hard to live with.

Clean like you.

Sometimes I push you just to see if you'll do the 'clean' thing or if I'm starting to have too much influence on you. See, I'm a manipulator. I know how to get people to react in certain ways. Even you, luv. Cos even when you do what you _believe_ to be the opposite of what I want – like sending Loker and Torres out for coffee after I told them not to go – it is _exactly_ the reaction I'm shooting for. I want to see that you are still thinking for yourself and not just trying to go along with me so as not to make waves or out of some misapprehension that that's what's expected of you. I know sometimes it seems that's what I expect of you, but I don't, really. Well, yeah, on occasion I do when I'm feeling like a bit of a bully. But for the most part, I don't expect that.

Ninety percent of the time.

Alright, eighty-five.

Clean like you.

And your line? Your bloody line? With you on your side, all neat and tidy…me on my side with whatever Mess-of-the-Day I've created? I'm sick to death of your line. I should let you in on a little secret: I've got a line of my own when it comes to you. It shapes how I view you, how I interact with you at any given time. On the one side is Partner-You. You can tell when I'm in that mode of thinking because I call you Foster. On the other side is Best-Friend-You. That's how I'm seeing you whenever I call you Gillian.

Or Gill…

Actually, calling you Gill…that one _might_ be a third way I see you. No, it _is_ a third way, for sure; no 'might' about it. For this third way, you'd have to look _under_ the line. I keep that one hidden. Even _I_ don't look at that one directly or often. When that one makes a rare appearance, it's only because it slipped out from under the line all on its own and ambushed me. Did you ever wonder why, when my mate Terry called you Gill, I corrected him? Call me territorial, I suppose. It was too familiar of him to presume to call you that. Got my hackles up. Just be grateful I didn't drop trou and mark you on the spot.

Though talking of marking, there is actually a way I do that very thing. It's in the way I hug you. Ask yourself: have you _ever_ seen me hug _anyone_ else like that, with that full-body connection I create when I hug you? Pay attention next time and you'll see what I mean. I don't _just_ have my arms around you. It isn't _just_ that my chest and stomach are pressed tight to yours so that not even air could fit in between. No, it's far more than that. Our heads are touching. My hands are on you somewhere or other. I even ensure that our legs and feet are making contact. And the rest.

But it doesn't even stop there. My eyes are touching you, whether I'm looking at the back of your hair or your shoulder or some point…south…of shoulders or whether I close my eyes so that I'm looking at the after-image of your face that's burned into my brain. I'm breathing you in til the fragrance of you is filling my lungs, and all I can think about is how your skin would taste beneath my lips. In my imagination, you taste dark and sweet and luscious.

Or maybe that's just your chocolate pudding talking.

I digress.

Ahem.

Back to the line…

Let me try a grammatical analogy for you: semicolons.

By using a semicolon – so I'm told – instead of a period between two sentences, you show that those two sentences have a closer relationship to each other than they do to the other sentences around them. Now, stay with me, cos this is the really good bit! What I think, right, is that our so-called 'line' isn't a line at all. Not anymore. I think it's shrunk and reinvented itself so that these days, it's a semicolon. And you and me? We're the sentences on either side of it, more closely related to one another than to those around us.

What d'ya make of that, eh?

So these are my confessions. Maybe some day I'll screw up enough courage (or blinding stupidity, more's like) to tell you all this out loud. For the time being, though, the way I'm staring at you right now while all these thoughts are tumbling rapid-fire through my skull will just have to be enough. Cos, I mean, it's a lot to have to carry, to have to work through. But we push back and we hold on and we _push back._

Oh, one last confession and at no extra charge though this one could prove the most costly should I ever actually reach the point of confessing all this stuff in words.

Here it is: you once told me I could do anything I put my mind to.

Well, darlin', I've put my mind to _you_.

So, tell me: do you stand by that statement?

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**Ok, folks, what did you think of this piece? Please let me know! Thanks for reading.**

**I used some direct quotes from several eps but used them in different ways, so I hope it worked.**


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